Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, Take 2

Hey Gadget... Have you noticed increased temps while gaming with the 186.08 driver? I ended up reverting back to 185.81 - I was seeing a 7-10c jump while gaming. Not good.

 

Yea, I am seeing an increase too. I am still testing not sure if I will revert back yet.

 

@hikkoo
My CPU @2.8 = 1.113V - 1.313V (6.0x - 14.0x)
@3.4 = 1.113V - 1.575V (6.0x), also 1.450V (17.0x)

The multipliers and voltages are fluctuating constantly. While using ORTHOS stress test the multiplier 17.0x was steady at 1.450V.

 

Zerg, sorry for the late response. The difference is the refresh rate. Nvidia's glasses are designed to run each eye at 60Hz refresh rate - requiring a 120Hz screen. This means you see no stuttering or flickering.

With normal cyan/red glasses, you get a refresh rate of 30Hz per eye (60Hz screen). This is gonna cause headaches and eyestrain over extended periods of use. That's the real difference between 'em.

 

Would you guys recommend getting an x9000 when I have the T9500? Sorry to interrupt other subjects.

 

If you can grab an X9000 from a reliable source at a reasonable cost then.... yes!

 

Sorry to cut into the flow here, but can you guys give me an idea of what Forceware version is best at the mo with regards temps/performance - and whether I should use modded (Dox, or others) drivers, or do stock drivers do a better job? I could use some of the experience of the *senior* m1730 users! Please give me an idea of idle/load temps with the drivers y'all use. Anyone used nHancer here? How does it affect performance?

Batboy, if could you please chip in and give me your recommendation (and idle/load temps with recommended driver) too, it'd be great.

Uhm, one more thing - what defragging utility do you guys use? Just the included windows util, or something else?

 

The latest beta's (186.06 I believe) are reported at causing more heat than normal - 7-10 celcius warmer. I'm using 185.05, and I have no heat issues (or at least no more than before) and everything seems to be running fine. This is stock 185.05 by the way, no mods.

 

Okay...but earlier you did say that your idle temp is about 75C. I'm guessing that's a little high, right? Correct me if I'm mistaken. Mine normally stays about 58-65C but has this annoying habit of wandering up to about 70-72 for no particular reason at times..other than that I'm happy with Dox's 185.85...

 

Yeah. I've had my Motherboard, Heat Sinks and Fans replaced, still around 75. I think it's high, Dell say it's normal. Usually when gaming I hit 94 degrees max. As far as I'm concerned, if it breaks it's Dells problem - I've made them aware of the issue.

 

@mrhohoha
I use the WHQL certified nVidia drivers. For me it's very steady without issues. While hikkoo claims better performance with Dell's 179.24 drivers. I've to test that one time else.

For defragging my disks I use Auslogics Disk Defrag v.1.6.24.355. It does the job quicker than de Windows utility.

 

Well, I received my 3D glasses today...and there's something very wrong =-P

I'm seeing a red image, and a blue image. They aren't 'combining' for the 3D effect. And yes I've set it up in the Nvidia Control Panel. Anyone else tested this or managed to get it to work properly?

Edit: I found out it was the depth causing the issue. However, I cannot get the '3D' effect to work at all. Nothing more than sore eyes and a red/blue screen =-P

 

Does the demo work? Have you tried other games? It could be an issue with Win7 (?).

 

I'm not sure which Demo you mean. If you're referring to the Nvidia logo with the 'eye' coming towards you - it didn't look 3D to me. I could see it, but didn't look very 3D X-D

I tried Mount & Blade and Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Both look pretty normal to be honest =-(

 

@ BatBoy
Sorry for the late reply. I install RAID drivers while windows installation. And then just to be on the safe side I install them after the installation as well.

On the note about sound cards. None of these creative sound cards have their own sound chip. It is way to big and hot to fit into such a small case. All the work is passed on to CPU. From what I've read, USB sound cards tend to load CPU more than express slot cards.

 

Thanks for the reply DDT... Good to know. Seems to be a mix - either way I guess it doesn't really matter. For me, I'd rather just take the extra minute to pop in a USB Flash Drive and provide the latest drivers at time of install.

@Eambo:
If you have the cheapy paper glasses, does it look 3Dish? If so, perhaps its a configuration issue with the 3D Glasses you purchased. Are they the glasses made by NVIDIA?

 

I bought a cheap as hell pair off ebay to give it a go. They're not Nvidia. I gave my mom a go, let her see it, and she said it looks 3D to her. I was playing CnC3 there for a few minutes, I could *sorta* see the 3D. I guess what I was expecting was like 3D movies where they jump out at you =-P I'll try it a while longer, try and get my eyes trained to it, and get back to you.

I wish I could get the proper 3D glasses. Darn my slow 60Hz screen! . Any of you modders out there: What are the chances of being able to get a 120Hz screen for the M1730?

 

I think its outside the spectrum of what LCD's are capable of. But an external monitor could do it. If you were really pushed about it that would the route I recommend.

 

Hi guys!! : D

I had just ordered Dell XPS M1730 from Dell(9800M GT SLI), just wanna ask some questions!

1.Does this Laptop perform well for Crysis, and Crysis Warhead?(high?)

2.Does this Laptop perform well for FallOut 3?(high?max?)

Thx a lot! have a nice day! : D

 

Eambo I had a look at the glasses ages ago and from what I remember the screen had to be min 100hz to work. Check your spec's.

 

Batboy re raid 0. I thought you only had to install the drivers pre OS if you were switching from 1 to 0. The reason being if you are switching from 1 to 0 the HD's have to be completely formatted to raid stripe so any drivers are deleted. If you are reinstalling an OS onto already raid 0 HD's the drivers won't be deleted.

Hope that makes sense it's late and a Sat night here. : )

 

Yeah, I thought so myself. Just wanted to confirm it though =-( And yeah, I like my portability (I know, as amusing as it is with an M1730), so an external is a no no =-(

Slammin: If you're talking about the official Nvidia glasses from what I can see it's 120hz. None the less, whatever it is the M1730 can't handle =-P

 

@Hikko
Finally got my hands on crysis. Took me a bit longer, than I intended to Here are my GPU benchmarks:
Crysis v1.21. CPU @ 3.4 Ghz. GPU OC (625/950/1550) 182.50.

1920x1200, No AA, DX10, 32-bit, All Very High:

1920x1200, No AA, DX10, 32-bit, All High:

Majestic774, hope this answers your question as well. As for Fallout 3, it runs very well on the machine. Just in case you don't know, 9800M GT=8800M GTX.

 

Awesome!!, thx for the details!! : D

 

Thanks DDT5 for performing this test. I myself needed the info. Would you also do the same runs with default GPU clocks, please?

To BatBoy:
I haven't done a full system clean-up to ever require raid drivers. However, I am on the verge of a full system format or something of that sort. I might remove the raid, and then create a raid stripe 0. The config utility says that when this is done, all data on the HDDs is lost. I'm going to use this as a means of format, and then install Vista 64 first to create the partition, and then XP 32 in dual-boot on the other parition. I've been reading through your comments on this thread about raid configuration, and since I do have two HDDs, I need to get my ground-work sorted before I do wipe the system clean. I've also checked some onlie tutorials on the topic, and most of them recommend having the drivers on a USB stick.

Anyway, I've got the backup USB stick with the drivers, so I hope this works.

 

Glad to be of help Kade Storm. Here is benchmark without GPU OCing.
Crysis v1.21. CPU @ 3.4 Ghz. GPU (Default Clocks) 182.50.

1920x1200, No AA, DX10, 32-bit, All Very High:

1920x1200, No AA, DX10, 32-bit, All High:

@ Hikko
Indeed OCing helps a lot in some cases. But if you look at Min FPS in Very High, yours is two times bigger than mine. I got OCZ RAM. At 667Mhz it works at 4-5-5-13 latency.

 

Re: Raid 0 Setup

I installed 2 new 320GB drives - set BIOS for RAID 0 default settings for stripe, etc - installed Vista Ult w/ Serv Pack 1 - 64-Bit Retail DVD (Not Dell OEM)

I did not install anything during O/S install other than the O/S itself....

Then I installed all the updates from the m1730 blog site AFTER the O/S booted up and I was in Vista.

Cheers.

 

Thanks again. Umm, as for minimum FPS - your system might be acting up, because my very high was 19-20 average, and minimum was around 13, same as Hikko (. . .and my system's in bad shape). I believe this minimum dip is more a result of software and other bloatware clutter. Even Ernstig's minimum was rather high, and he has the same specs as your machine.

 

i would just set Crysis to 1440x900 and set everything on Very High. It's what I do and i have silky smooth FPS. I can tell no visual difference between that and 1900x1200

 

Chad11481,
Your Crysis 1440x900 Very High setting, is this under DX9 or DX10? Keep in mind that I'm picky about using DX10 whenever possible because for one thing, our cards should do well with DX10, and that Crysis dose have slightly better lighting, POM, and object motion blur under the DX10 API. Sad part being that the performance takes a massive hit under DX10. This is why I always tend to confirm DX10 in tests.

 

Thanks to all who responded to my request for thoughts on properly setting up RAID 0 on 'The Beast'. DocSurge had posed the question to me and after some discussion with him I figured the best way to go would be to ask our community for their thoughts and experiences with this.

Again, thanks!

 

Thank you everyone and thanks alot batboy for all the help.

 

For the first time I took every component of my beast apart. It's not a hard job and maybe the easiest notebook I worked at so far.
I Cleaned my fans and put new AS5 paste on my CPU and GPU's.
I can see a temperature difference, roughly dropped 7ºC. I read it'll take something about 200 hours running till RS5 will perform max. I'm curious if I'll notice a difference later on.
My dedicated Ageia PhysX card is removed and retired.

 

One step in the right direction, indeed

 

RIP Ageia PhysX =-(

Out of interest, are they completely obsolete now? There's no advantage of having that card any more?

What sort of interesting features could I replace my Ageia PhysX card with?

 

The nVidia PhysX drivers these days perform really well. Your GPU's do the job better than the dedicated Ageia PhysX card. There's no advantage anymore to have this card.
As far as I know there's nothing you can replace the card with. I just left the slot empty.

 

Batboy, any more luck with those M17x AW drivers?

 

Such a shame =-( I wasted money on the card not long before the drivers came out too =-( Lol

 

Especially considering Physx was one of the majoy selling point of M1730; and for quite a while, you couldn't buy a M1730 without it.

All seemed to backfired now for those early adopter.

 

Yeah I was *forced* to buy it. I guess Dell knew they were going out and were squeezing as much money as they could out of it.

 

Every surface on M1730, apart from the keypad, and the back attracts fingerprint.

I use the cloth for glasses to clean, it doesn't quite do it. How do I clean the screen?

 

Anti-static wipes followed by a micro-fiber cloth.

 

Well, there is one game that could benefit from this card. Lawl.

Cryostasis. Note to other members with the European version of the game: A patch has been released in order to enjoy the full PhysX features found in the techdemo. I'm enjoying the game now, and with the PhysX relegated to my Ageia card, I can actually use the SLi to run the game at a res of 1680x1050. Of course, if you use Nvidia physx on GPU, your game will drag like a snail at that res, because for some stupid reason, PhysX in this game demands the hell out of the cards.

Anyway, I'm finally starting to enjoy Cryostasis for some of its more unique features, which also includes the slow-but-steady pace of thriller and horror driven plot-line. I'd recommend this game to FPS fans that are bored of the general action-oriented forumla.

 

Hi all

I've just been benchmarking my new m1730, and with the specs I have (in sig), I got 10720 (3DMark 06) on Dox's 185.85 (no OC or modifications) in Vista x64. Is that an okay score considering I don't have an extreme CPU? Also, in Win7RC x64 that drops to 10150 with the same driver... I wonder why...(especially when everyone is going gaga about Win7 being *faster*). Also, I've noticed my fans kick in at 75C. Is that okay, or do y'all use a util/tweak to have them switch on earlier?

 

How much would you say this spec XPS M1730 is worth, i`m in the UK so the price they are asking is £1300 which is roughly $2,078 US. If you read at the bottom its Dell genuine refurbed stock but it has slight cosmetic damage, it comes with Dell three year next business day on site warranty.

Is the optical drive easy to change to a bluray read and write drive, what about if i wanted to change the graphics cards to the latest ones, is it easy to do, how do you rate the Dual SLI 512MB (1024MB total) NVidia GeForce Go 8800M GTX dedicated graphics cards, i dont do heavy gaming, just occasional gaming ?

Are thos parts that are scratched, chipped and slighly dented easy to replace and at what sort of cost ?

Dell XPS M1730 - Entertainment Orientated Ultra High Spec Laptop with ''Smoke Back''
Intel Core 2 Duo processor 2.8Ghz (X9000, 6MB L2 cache, 800Mhz FSB)
4096MB DDR2 SDRAM (667Mhz, 2x2048MB)
2x 200GB SATA 7200 (RPM) hard drives (400GB total) - Free Fall Sensor
DVD+/-RW drive x8
UK keyboard
Trackpad pointing device
17'' Ultrasharp Wide Screen WUXGA TFT display (1920x1200) with Truelife & Integrated 2.0MP webcam
Dual SLI 512MB (1024MB total) NVidia GeForce Go 8800M GTX dedicated graphics
Ageia PhysX processing Unit Card
10/100/1000 network interface
Intel Pro 4965 Wireless lan adaptor - 802.11 a/g/n
Bluetooth - Dell TrueMobile 355
PC Express card slot
8-in-1 Multicard reader
4x USB 2.0 ports
Firewire IEEE 1394 port
Dual-link DVI-I
S-video with component, composite
High defiinition stereo sound
Remote control
9 cell (85WPH) Li-ion battery & ac adaptor
Weight approx 4.81kg
Windows Vista Home Premium with COA & backup cds


Dell factory outlet sealed stock, boxed with full kit - Refurbished. This laptop has some very slight scratches on the casing. Also there is a small chip to the paint on the back hinge. Also there is a very slight indent on the wrist wrest left hand side.

Dell three year next business day on site warranty, until February 2012 (Ref 1730/22)

 

I sold one very similar with no warranty for $1750 USD about 2 months ago.

Optical drive is very easy to change out. If you don't get it from Dell then you'll have to get the bezel for it from Dell if you want it to be flush with the chassis (or use the old one).

As far as the other plastics it is very easy to do if you have some experience doing it. If you don't the manual shows you how to do it.

 

hey guys whats up?

anyone selling their m1730???? pm me

thanks

 

Your score could be significantly better than that after tweaking. I always get around 11700+ with stock clocks.

Win7 will remain a project in the works. It is, from the looks of things, clutter-free and stable, and should prove to be good in the long run. I know some of my games actually run smooth on this OS as opposed to Vista. My 3dmark score on the other hand is worse under Win7. Moral of story: 3dMark06 is -not- the true, defining benchmark to determine how your PC will perform in games. I can guarantee that I got higher scores with 182.xx drivers (11800+), and yet my newer DX10 games run better with 185.66+ drivers, while my 3dmark score is about 100 points lower. 3dMark06 is fun and all, but it's old, outdated, and is far from gospel. . . and more importantly, it is static.

 

I get around the same score as Kade's rig, but a little bit lower (I guess is the CPU? my T9300 scores a little bit over 2300 points in 3DMark06). I got 116xx points (see my signature) with 176.xx drivers and Windows 7 X64.

 

I`m willing to sell my XPS for 2500$. Not a cent less